Jeremy Musson, 'The Battle for Lady Tankerville's Bedroom: Wyatville's
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Jeremy Musson, ‘The battle for Lady Tankerville’s bedroom: Wyatville’s unexecuted plans for Chillingham Castle’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. XXIII, 2015, pp. 195–212 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 2015 THE BATTLE FOR LADY TANKERVILLE’S BEDROOM: WYATVILLE’S UNEXECUTED PLANS FOR CHILLINGHAM CASTLE JEREMY MUSSON effry Wyatville ( – ) was one of the Smirke, Nash, and Soane. There he recreated the Jimpresario architects of the late-Georgian period. medieval glamour of this famous seat of the British Ambitious and able, he was said to be easy company monarch – and earned the title ‘Architect to the and, unlike his talented uncle James Wyatt, in whose King’. One of his less known commissions, from the office he had worked, he was also business-like and same year as his Windsor appointment, was an efficient. Wyatville (plain Wyatt until but, as ambitious plan for additions to Chillingham Castle known as Wyatville for the subject of this article, that in Northumberland for the fifth Earl of Tankerville surname shall be used throughout) was prolific. His ( – ) of which only a small element was greatest achievement was the restoration and actually executed – owing it seems to a disagreement rebuilding of Windsor Castle in – , the with the Countess of Tankerville about her bedroom commission for which he won in competition with (Fig. ). Fig. Chillingham Castle, the north front and the splay walls. ( Country Life Picture Library ) THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIII THE BATTLE FOR LADY TANKERVILLE ’ S BEDROOM : WYATVILLE ’ S PLANS FOR CHILLINGHAM CASTLE This story is revealed in a surviving album of castellar houses were as likely as to have fine signed plans, dated , entitled ‘Designs/for Classical interiors as Gothic. After setting up in Additions to Chillingham Castle/in the same style independent practice, Wyatville’s own commissions that has been already pursued in altering it/for the included improvements to the Marquess of Bath’s Rt Honble the Earl of Tankerville/by Jeffry Wyatville Longleat from to , including a new stable Archt/ ’. It is in the private collection of a direct range – where he also collaborated with Repton for descendant of Wyatville’s client and these plans were the first time. At Badminton he remodelled principal unknown to scholars in the past – the album is not reception rooms between and , and in mentioned either by Howard Colvin or Derek he was at work at Woburn. Famously, Wyatville was Linstrum. There are a handful of other contemporary in charge of major improvements and additions to plans in existence – those mentioned by Linstrum Chatsworth in Derbyshire from , through the and a finely drawn ground plan in the RIBA s and beyond. For the latter project at collection, which appears to be a presentation copy of Chatsworth, the sixth Duke of Bedford (his client at the first ground plan in the album. The Chillingham Woburn) wrote to recommend Wyatville warmly to Castle album can also be read closely with various the sixth Duke of Devonshire, saying that the papers deposited in the Northumberland Archives at architect was ‘well worthy of your confidence – he Woodhorn, especially those in the ‘Tankerville has no inconsiderable share of taste as an architect [Chillingham Castle] mss’, Box , entitled: ‘The and whatever he undertakes he executes with skill & Right Honble. The Earl of Tankerville Estate No. ’ judgment’. Although no such letter survives proving which contains ‘miscellaneous Estate Maps and a direct link between Jeffry Wyatville’s work at Papers, th – th centuries’. These include further Chatsworth and his commission in to design drawings of architectural details, some signed by large new additions to Chillingham Castle in Wyatville (i.e details for the cornice for staircase hall Northumberland, it seems probable that the Duke of and the family pew, and a design for a new Vinery) Devonshire introduced him to his friend and and, most significantly, books of masons’ accounts for contemporary the fifth Earl of Tankerville. – , showing renovation of a number of key There were close familial and political ties (and a structures around the garden, estate and work to the little strife too) between their two families, so the castle itself – including to the ‘Castle interior’. These Tankervilles would have been well aware of the with the evidence of nineteenth- and early-twentieth architect’s ongoing work at Chatsworth. Lord century photographs and of the building itself Tankerville’s wife, Corisande, ( – ) was a (despite later nineteenth century alterations and mid daughter of the Duc de Gramont. Her mother, twentieth century decay of the interiors) give a Louise Gabrielle Aglaé, was a daughter of the Duc de valuable picture of the approach to these designs, the Polignac, and her de Polignac grandmother was a context of the commission and its ultimate failure. close friend of both the French queen, Marie- In the s, Wyatville would have been a natural Antionette, and Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire choice for a titled and landed proprietor who wanted (Fig. ). Corisande fled the French Revolution as a to modernise a historic family seat but keep it in a young child and was brought up as a ward of the historic style. Wyatville had ably been trained up by Devonshires, thus regarding Chatsworth as one of his architect uncles Samuel and James and he could her family homes. A famous beauty, it has been work with equal facility in Gothic and Classical suggested that she was the first love of Georgiana’s styles – he was himself a pioneer of the neo- son the sixth Duke (who never married) as well as Elizabethan style for the country house. His Gothic his half-brother, Augustus Clifford. The fifth Duke THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIII THE BATTLE FOR LADY TANKERVILLE ’ S BEDROOM : WYATVILLE ’ S PLANS FOR CHILLINGHAM CASTLE Corisande but presented ‘little O’ with a seat in Parliament in his gift (as MP for Knaresborough); Ossulston said that ‘some wives bring their husbands fortunes but mine brought me a borough’. Although there had been a minor political falling out in , the sixth, ‘Bachelor’, Duke was a guest at house parties at Chillingham Castle into the s. During one visit there his portrait was sketched by the artist Landseer who had befriended the fifth Earl’s son and heir, Baron Ossulston (b. ), while in Scotland – Landseer famously depicted the latter in Scene in Chillingham Park: Portrait of Lord Ossulston, which hung at Chillingham Castle until the s. Wyatville’s work at Chatsworth greatly extended the accommodation of the house, in a style which did honour to the Baroque palace. At Chillingham, the historic quality of the existing castle would also have been an important consideration. The Tankervilles – whose family name was Bennet – were important Northumbrian landowners. The Chillingham Castle estate came to them by marriage in the early eighteenth century through a branch of the ancient Grey family. Charles Bennet – son of John Bennet, created first Baron Ossulston in – Fig. Corisande Armandine, Countess of Tankerville married Lady Mary Grey, daughter and heiress of by John Cochran, published after a miniature by Anne Mee. ( National Portrait Gallery, D ) Ford, Lord Grey of Warke, Viscount Grey of Glendale and Earl of Tankerville (d. ); he was a supporter of the Duke of Monmouth yet survived this association to become First Lord of the Treasury of Devonshire was very generous to Corisande when and to build Uppark in Sussex. After his father-in- she and the fifth Earl of Tankerville – as Baron law’s death Charles Bennet was created Earl of Ossulston, or ‘little O’ as he was known to the family Tankerville. Chillingham Castle – which his and to the Cavendishes – married. The marriage had descendant the fifth Earl had inherited in – was already been delayed for two years after a falling out then a picturesque and ancient nobleman’s seat, but between ‘little O’ and his own father, who did not it was clearly constrained and complex in plan as a approve of the marriage in theory for lack of any country house, despite modest improvements made dowry but, by tradition, for fear of introducing by his father. It was one of the admired historic Duchess Georgiana’s gambling lifestyle to border castles in a county rich in historic castles, Chillingham. They were eventually married in many of them barely habitable or in ruins by the at Devonshire House in London (by special licence) early nineteenth century; the fourth Earl had only and the Duke not only settled a dowry of £ , on resided in the castle in the summer months. THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIII THE BATTLE FOR LADY TANKERVILLE ’ S BEDROOM : WYATVILLE ’ S PLANS FOR CHILLINGHAM CASTLE When Wyatville was asked to look at This latter work had been carried out in a very Chillingham Castle it was still a largely fourteenth- respectful Gothic style externally by the Edinburgh century fortress remodelled in the s, especially architect John Paterson, preserving the outline of the in the north- and south-facing ranges, to provide fourteenth-century castle; the elegant neo-classical more commodious accommodation for visits of King interiors within have since been lost (the rooms are James VI of Scotland (and st of England). Sir now the Castle’s museum rooms). Paterson was then Thomas Grey had been granted a licence to the leading practitioner in the castle style as developed crenellate the property in and he is credited in Scotland by Robert and James Adam. New with building the quadrangular castle with four kitchen offices on the east side were also ‘to be built of corner towers and an inner courtyard. Important old materials from the wash house, malting and alterations were made in the late Elizabethan era, stables, and to be built as like the work of castle as the when this was the Greys’ principal residence.